Posted
by
BeauHDon Wednesday May 16, 2018 @03:00AM
from the two-for-the-price-of-one dept.

Citing reports from The Guardian and Focus Ecuador, The Verge reports that Ecuador's intelligence program spent at least $5 million "on an elaborate security and surveillance network around WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange." The intelligence program was known as "Operator Hotel," which began as "Operation Guest" when Assange took refuge in Ecuador's UK embassy in 2012. From the report: Operation Hotel has allegedly covered expenses like installing CCTV cameras and hiring a security team to "secretly film and monitor all activity in the embassy," including Assange's daily activities, moods, and interactions with staff and visitors. The Guardian estimates Ecuadorian intelligence agency Senain has spent at least $5 million on Assange-related operations, based on documents they reviewed. The report details attempts to improve Assange's public image and potentially smuggle him out of the embassy if he was threatened. But it also writes that relations between Assange and Ecuador have badly deteriorated over the past several years. In 2014, Assange allegedly breached the embassy's network security, reading confidential diplomatic material and setting up his own secret communications network.

In this case, it's the truth. When Assuage was releasing all the terrible stuff Bush did, he was considered a hero. It wasn't until he started ratting on the next admin that we started talking about what kind of traitor he was.

He turned Wikileaks from a service publishing information to the public while protecting the source to a political weapon to push a specific political agenda.

Actually wikileaks *always* pushed a political agenda. Their famous gulf war video was edited so as to remove the fact that the journalists killed were essentially "embedded" with an armed insurgent group while blocks away American troops were fighting other insurgents. Hang with insurgents near a firefight and you run the legitimate risk of getting Apache'd.

Wikileaks was the same during the Bush and Obama years, the only difference is that some cheered during the former and others cheered during the lat

People to watch them, however, aren't. Nor are security-cleared installers to install stuff in international embassies."

Especially if the installers have to be flown in from Ecuador.(secret services don't trust the local people)And like all those people they always need some piece of equipment that they 'forgot' and have to go back to the 'office'.

1. You are confusing Socialist vs Communist. It is sometime confusing because a Communist country will often call themselves Socialist Democratic Republic a big long name of things that make them seem like they are for the people. Also the Ideas of Socialism vs Communism have a lot of similarities, but there are major differences. Socialism is a regulated free market, vs Communism which is a controlled market. So in Socialist government and you owned a food store, you can sell whatever food you want just

You start with roughly 65%. That is the money your employer gives you. That is your salary. The other roughly 35% is taken by the government: that is the tax. Then through various forms of paperwork and logistical trickery, you can earn some or all of that 35% back. The employers aren't where the taxes come from. In fact, the government taxe

That says it all. We'll take from those that we think can do stuff, and give it to those that we think need it. Someone has to make the decision. But, what if they decide that YOU can do stuff, but YOU don't need stuff? What if you start to think that their decision is completely arbitrary, and think that YOU need stuff, too? What if you begin to think that YOU a

I gaurantee you that if the UK government wasn't so determined to put him in jail (possibly followed up with a one way flight to federal pound me in the a** prison in the USA) he would be in a country with no extradition treaty with the USA, UK or EU by now.

to get a new credit card couriered to a backwater in Brazil because he thought he was helping the world by publishing my personal details and my credit card details on WikiLeaks.

All because I subscribed to a geopolitical newsletter which I used for research to write investment reports, but WikiLeaks thought I was part of an international private spying network. If I was I certainly wouldn't be on/. I would be drinking martinis on a tropical island whilst contemplating my next mission.

The good news is that eventually he will have some sort of medical emergency and will have to be taken to a hospital. Hopefully, I will get my money back then by laying a bet that he will be put in a dark hole somewhere.

I'm not seeing your point here. Yes the information is on Wikileaks, plus whatever other websites which have also published it. Because it's compromised information and that's how that works. How are you tying that fact to blaming your loss of $200 on Wikileaks? Are you saying that you wouldn't have needed a new card if Wikileaks hadn't published your compromised information? That is not true.

Are you sure your not a government worker? I mean, putting someone in a dark hole for life over $200 does sound like one.

I

Not a govt. worker. Whilst I don't have any respect for him these days, I don't want to necessarily see him in a dark hole, but I won't mind making money out of his misfortune since he has made money from mine.

But it also writes that relations between Assange and Ecuador have badly deteriorated over the past several years. In 2014, Assange allegedly breached the embassy's network security, reading confidential diplomatic material and setting up his own secret communications network.

He annoys people and they are out to get him. It's not paranoia, he just can't help himself.

He crosses the CIA and the US government. So they destroy his reputation and they destroy him to show everyone who's boss. They just can't help themselves, it's standard procedure . From the article:

In an extraordinary breach of diplomatic protocol, Assange managed to compromise the communications system within the embassy and had his own satellite internet access, according to documents and a source who wished to remain anonymous. By penetrating the embassy’s firewall, Assange was able to access and

It's ok to like what he built while also thinking he's a lousy person.

I'm not actually 100% sure it is. The thing is, it takes a certain kind of person to build something like wikileaks, and a person driven to do something like that is basically never going to be a nice person.

You despise him because you're an induhvidual eh. Apparently the idea is that if Assange is anything less than perfect we can easily betray him and your standards are so very high that everything Assange has contributed melts away when you consider the charges.

Actually, I despise the sonofabitch, too - and it has nothing whatsoever to do with his sex life.

Instead, it has everything to do with the contents of more than 11,000 Twitter DM's between Assange and a select group [theintercept.com] of "long term and reliable supporters" of Wikileaks that were leaked to The Intercept by a member of that group, and published on Valentine's day, 2018. (How's that for irony?)

Those DM's make it Waterford clear - in Assange's own words - that, far from being the neutral information broker he has always portrayed it as, Wikileaks always was, instead, an instrument designed to impose his own, personal agenda on the USA in particular, and the world, in general. It was - and is - engaged in a deliberate propaganda campaign to sway public opinion in favor of the Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign, and in favor of Russia (as what Assange claims to be a necessary counterbalance to American influence on the international stage, a positive influence on the world, and, bizarrely, a weak - and helpless - victim of American covert tampering).

It's transparently obvious from even a cursory scan of the trove that Julian Assange is, at best, arrogantly delusional about how geopolitics works in the real world, is determinedly ignorant of how American domestic politics actually influences its international policies and actions, and is either grossly misinformed about, or is deliberately misleading his key financiers (because that's what, from context, his audience of "long term and reliable supporters" consists of) regarding the effectiveness of Vladimir Putin's covert operations to destabilize democracies not just in the USA, but globally, as well. Regardless of which is the case, in these DM's to his inner circle of "reliable" supporters - one of whom, I remind you, is unquestionably responsible for having leaked them to The Intercept - his determination to influence the USA's 2016 election against Hilary Clinton, and for Donald Trump is repeatedly, explicitly made clear (as is his belief, all historical evidence notwithstanding, that Democrats, rather than Republicans, are the primary authors of American global adventurism).

But, hey, don't take my word - or the Intercept's - for that. Instead, read their most germane Twitter DM's [documentcloud.org] for yourself, and come to your own conclusions...

I generally accept that people are pretty much flawed, though I am less tolerant when bullying is involved and I react here because it feels too much like 'two minutes hate' and that is because of a successful campaign.

Wikileaks is important because it reintroduces a degree of checks and balances to power where it's mostly lost. The watchdog function of the mainstream is almost gone. That argument by itself may not provide enough drive for someone to actually go ahead with it so I accept that those who act

Seriously? After all the hospitality they've provided Assange? They need to write up formal charges for this and extradite him for computer crimes committed at the embassy. He should get a LONG stay in an Ecuadorian prison that will make the Sweden rape allegations look small by comparison.

True or not, overstated or not, you'd think that Assange would be of a mind to be as deferential as humanly possible to the the embassy, located in a country desperate to nab him, which was sheltering him.

Rough translation: Assange found that little placard with the WiFi password written on it for all to freely use, discovered an open share on one of the embassy's network-connected computers (but probably didn't find anything particularly interesting on it) and then he casually turned on his VPN to tunnel through the embassy firewall and log into Wikileaks.

It feels to me like certain high profile personalities in the media (like Assange, but certainly not limited to him) are all-too-often treated like they possess some sort of super-intelligence, and can do shockingly amazing things with computers. The reality is likely to be underwhelming most of the time, when you break down the colorful but vague terminology into layman's terms.

Agreed... as someone who's lived all their life in the UK, and travelled quite a bit, I can safely say that the UK is no worse than any other civilised place I've been to.

Plus, I don't get regarded like an idiot that can't cross the road unsupervised.

Plus, literally, I do not feel in fear of government one iota (except from a "what stupid thing are they doing now" viewpoint, but that's universal).

Strange that people complaining they live freer lives than other countries that they've never been to also think they have to sustain a household armoury in order to do so.

(P.S. The last time I was questioned in any official capacity, or had any interaction with official law enforcement bodies, was while entering the United States for a brief holiday... honestly, I've never been asked so many obtuse, unrelated, obscure questions and I hear they're going to start asking for social media details? Oh... unless you count the policeman who came to my daughter's school fair and let the kids press the siren button)

P.S. The last time I was questioned in any official capacity, or had any interaction with official law enforcement bodies, was while entering the United States for a brief holiday... honestly, I've never been asked so many obtuse, unrelated, obscure questions

If it makes you feel any better, that is exactly the experience I had while entering the UK.

I think it's really just a symptom of the universal truth that the role of customs officer across the globe is the sort of role that has a high likelihood of attracting the odd dickhead who failed at everything they wanted to do in life (like becoming a police officer) and so had to settle for what little power tripping they could do at a checkpoint on a national border instead.

I've always found US customs officers decent, and UK customs officers nice on my return (albeit a little fucking dense), I've found Canadian customs officers to be universally complete arseholes in Ottawa and Montreal, but usually pretty nice in Toronto and Vancouver. Across the rest of the globe it's always been a mixed bag - nice and laid back in the Caribbean, corrupt and dodgy in Egypt for example.

Personally I wouldn't judge a country by it's customs officers because the high likelihood of down and out power trippers is bound to be at odds with the norm.

Hahahaha - Canadians don't even know how to be assholes properly, though I've seen them try a few times. I live in Minnesota and am a dual citizen and have family in Canada so I cross the border a lot. I sometimes get a few curt questions from the Canadian customs, one sent me to immigration (lol) because I had forgotten my Canadian passport and didn't let me explain I was a citizen. But in perhaps 50 crossings I was treated rudely maybe 3-5 times and it was at best a 3/10. When I filed for my social insurance number the lady behind the desk at service Canada rudely said "and why do you think you need one?" Going off my American accent she probably thought I was a medical refugee. After saying "umm, because I'm a citizen..." she absolutely couldn't stop apologizing and directed me straight to an open agent lmao, here in America they would have called the cops over and doubled down and never, absolutely never apologized.

At the border coming back the customs agents are assholes about 40% of the time, one asked why I was in Canada and part of my answer involved being a citizen at which point he interrupted me "Son, we don't recognize dual citizenship (lol a lie), just what kind of American are you? Son, If we went to war with Canada what side would you fight for??!?" Then he went off the goddamn handle and started to make racially charged comments about my family member names and asked me insane questions for another 5 minutes. Then I got sent to be searched. I felt lucky to have made it across alive and until I see it, Canada just dosent have the culture to put assholes like that in authority and approve of thier treatment of citizens.

Try being held for them for 3 hours for literally no reason before you're allowed to go on your way whilst they ask absurdly irrelevant and probing questions about your friends, family, sex life, finances, job, and search your laptop and ask who you speak to on random websites like Facebook and to aggressively accuse you of lying to try and rile you up and get a reaction.

Believe me, Canadian customs officers most definitely do know how to be absolute cunts for no reason.

A country is obligated to let her citizens in even if their travel papers have expired (or lost) as long as they can prove their citizenship status.

I once flew to visit my parents abroad and did not notice that my passport (of the destination country) had expired. They told me straight away that if I didn't take care of it during my stay, I would not be able to fly out back home.

Yeah, I pointed this out to my wife, that if they denied her entry, they'd be breaking human rights law.

I'm also not sure they could stop her leaving frankly either, because she's got dual British citizenship and I don't think they can arbitrarily detain you over something like an expired passport unless it's actually a criminal offence, so as much as they huff and puff about having to travel on that passport, I think if you really wanted to push it they could neither stop you entering, nor leaving on anoth

Canada just dosent have the culture to put assholes like that in authority and approve of thier treatment of citizens.

Bwahaha! Oh wait, you're serious? Let me laugh even harder!

Canada is just like the US, except a bit more authoritarian while pretending to be nice and polite. I would know, I live here.

And you don't live in the US. I hear the same bitching from my family that lives there, they feel just like you because they don't experience all America has to offer. Every time I need a light hearted break from the harsh reality here I tune into Canadian news and listen to the cure problems you have there. Tredau crapping out on represtational voting, aww we have a corrupt greedy toddler dismantling the EPA, HUD, Department of Education, and who is breaking every promise America has made to the world u

I've always found US customs officers decent, and UK customs officers nice on my return (albeit a little fucking dense), I've found Canadian customs officers to be universally complete arseholes in Ottawa and Montreal, but usually pretty nice in Toronto and Vancouver. Across the rest of the globe it's always been a mixed bag - nice and laid back in the Caribbean, corrupt and dodgy in Egypt for example.

Dude - "corrupt and dodgy" describes pretty much every employee of every Egyptian bureaucracy.

They've had more than 5,000 years to perfect bureaucratic corruption, after all, so it's hardly surprising that they've managed to refine it to such an exquisite degree...

I've always found US customs officers decent, and UK customs officers nice on my return (albeit a little fucking dense), I've found Canadian customs officers to be universally complete arseholes in Ottawa and Montreal, but usually pretty nice in Toronto and Vancouver. Across the rest of the globe it's always been a mixed bag - nice and laid back in the Caribbean, corrupt and dodgy in Egypt for example.

I've found most customs everywhere is about answering their questions without setting off any flags, which mostly involves knowing where you are going to be staying and what you are going to be doing. If they ask you some question that lets you ramble on enthusiastically about what you are going to be doing or have done, they'll usually tell you to shut up, finish your paperwork, and get you on your way. Personally, I've found the easiest way to get through customs is to wear the leather jacket with the stu

Then you most always tow the public line on everything. A police force in England was threatening to imprison people for making fun of a "drug bust" they made on Facebook. Then there was that Scottish guy who was in real risk of being sent to prison for making a nazi joke where the judge said the context which the joke was made was unimportant and could be disregarded when applying the law. If you don't find that terrifying, you're a fool.

I am guessing you are also of Western European Decent as well, with a charming English Accent.Culture, TV and Radio has made the British White Man seem like the general good guy. So Officials just don't get immediately suspicious of you.However if you don't quite meet that stereotype, and you look like someone who matches a negative stereotype. Then you will get questioned and hassled much more.

I see a difference when I go to work where I am wearing my work cloths and rather well shaved vs. on the weekend

You missed something somewhere. What about The Guardian's wish to credit Focus Ecuador makes the story possibly "disinformation"? Or alternatively what about The Guardian being British and the Verge being American makes it that? (If this is some kind of weird ass smear about The Guardian, well, you do know The Guardian is one of the only independent media outlets in the world, right? It's owned by a self-contained trust that exists solely to publish The Guardian and related newspapers, and the trust itself is run by journalists. It has its biases but it's not in any way establishment or government controlled - hell, they've had MI-5 enter their offices and smash their computers in the past, and were one of the first newspapers to raise the profile of Wikileaks, and assisted them for a time.)